


Pause, Then Start Again

by Hecate



Category: Resident Evil (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: The Arcadia is free. Wesker is dead. But that's only the beginning.Note: Goes AU towards the end of "Afterlife"
Relationships: Alice/Claire Redfield
Comments: 6
Kudos: 107
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Pause, Then Start Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SadieFlood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieFlood/gifts).



Alice sounds almost happy when she records the new message for the Arcadia, happy and determined, and it's an unfamiliar sound.

"This is Arcadia," she says, "broadcasting on the emergency frequency."

And Claire listens to Alice, and she looks at Alice, and warmth spreads through her, airy and sharp, a forgotten feeling. It's hope, she realizes after a few heartbeats, hope for some kind of future.

Claire doesn't remember the last time she felt like this.

Not when she left Alice behind and flew the helicopter to Alaska, the remains of her people crammed into it. And not when they were still driving through the ruins of their old world, always looking for gasoline or food or something to drink; not during the bright moments when they found bits and pieces that helped them through another week. It might have been years earlier, back when the dead started to rise and she saw the helicopters and the soldiers coming, and the streaks of jets in the sky above her.

It's been a while.

She's not sure she still knows how to deal with something as stupid and useless as hope.

~*~

Chris is sitting in the remains of Alice's crashed plane, his eyes focused on nothing, his body still. Claire watches him for a while, looks at the lines of his face, the shape of his neck and arms, his right hand resting on the frame of a shattered window.

It feels peaceful, this moment, and she smiles when he turns his head and looks at her.

"Do you remember me now?" Chris asks, his voice careful, his face blank.

Claire walks over to the plane, leans against its side. "Yeah. Not all, but yeah."

Her brother smiles at her.

~*~

The Arcadia is big enough for all the people they freed from the pods, empty rooms filling the ship's belly, one after the other. They felt dead back when they arrived here, people hidden in the ground, bare walls and ceilings. They still feel like this now, even with the survivors walking through them, talking with weary smiles on their faces.

They are halls, white-walled, and there is nothing comfortable about them, nothing that allows for privacy. After years spent in cars, Claire can't imagine living like this.

But there is no choice.

"We need blankets or something," she tells Alice. They are walking through the crew's quarters, collecting all the useful bits and pieces they can find. In another corridor, Chris and K-Mart are doing the same. "And more clothes."

"More food," Alice says. "Water. Gasoline. Batteries. Weapons."

Claire thinks of Alice's speech, the one that they are still sending out. "And more people are coming."

Alice looks away from the pile of dirty laundry they found, looks at Claire, and she still looks so determined. "I'm not sure that there are still so many people out there."

Claire swallows.

They don't talk for the rest of their search.

~*~

"Chris said that your memories are back," Alice says, her back to Claire. There is tension there, in her shoulders, in the arch of her neck.

And Claire thinks, _You still don't have yours,_ and it's strange that knowledge, that piece of Alice Carlos gave her when they first met and Alice was this strange woman with powers no one understood.

"Yeah," she says. "Maybe not all of it, but yeah..."

"That's good," Alice says, and she turns to Claire, a bit more open than moments before.

"Yeah," Claire agrees.

"Do you remember anything about Alaska that could help us?" Alice asks.

Claire swallows. Thinks of waves passing by under the helicopter, thinks of the beach. People coming in with boats, Umbrella's men, and hands grabbing for her people, pulling them away.

She remembers running.

She remembers leaving her people behind.

"No," she says.

And Alice must have heard something in her voice, must have seen it on her face, because she reaches out, her hand wrapping around Claire's. And for a moment, Alaska doesn't quite matter as much as it did just seconds before.

~*~

Chris decides they should bunk in the bridge of the ship. "Alice is the captain anyway," he tells Claire, pushing a mattress from one of the crew quarters towards the wall.

Claire nods. "She won't like it."

"Probably not. But really, it's calmer here, and the few of us who know how to fight need to sleep well." Another shove, Chris turning to Claire, apparently satisfied with the mattress. "And it's the best spot to see most of the bad shit coming that could come at us."

Claire turns away from him then, turns towards the windows. They have a view from here, they've got the navigation equipment and everything else to keep watch over the ship and everything around it. Still, they are exposed. Vulnerable. She shudders. "No one would want to sleep here."

Chris laughs. "There is that."

~*~

Alice finds her at night, Claire standing at the railing, the two of them alone at the bow of the ship. The ocean around them is dark, a monster beneath their feet, but the sky is made of stars, pinpricks of lights scattering all across it. It's beautiful.

It has been like this ever since the lights went out one after the other, no electricity and no one around to turn it all back on. But Claire has hardly looked at the night sky in all the years since then, has always been too busy or too tired.

But now, she can look at the sky.

Alice is quiet next to her, standing closer than she needs to, her arm warm against Claire's.

Claire doesn't move away.

~*~

There is a routine to their lives now, and Claire doesn't quite know how that happened.

The message is still going out, calling survivors to the ship, but they can't use most of the tech onboard to look for them. It's too dangerous, the satellites circling Earth probably still in Umbrella's hands, and they don't know who rules the company now that both Isaacs and Wesker are gone.

They've all got tasks now and they force a rhythm to their lives. One of them is patrolling the ship with a group of survivors. Another one is at the helm, staring at the instruments, staring at the sea. One of them curls up on their mattress on the bridge, sleeping and yet ready to spring into action.

For a while, the Arcadia felt like a new beginning, almost shiny with possibilities.

Now, Claire isn't so sure about it any more.

~*~

There are only a few kids on the ship, all of them clinging together, little faces staring at the adults with mistrust, only playing when they think no one is watching.

It hurts to look at them.

Claire remembers the children of her convoy, remembers flying them to Alaska and right into Umbrella's hands. She found some of them on the ship among the other survivors, big-eyed and tired, their hands reaching out for her.

Claire tries not to think about what happened to the others.

But at night, she dreams and she wakes up, and sometimes she is still screaming her rage into the bridge, her voice sharp with anger, with the horrific realization that she lost them. Chris never comments on it, just sits down next to her, his arm around her shoulder, his body solid and warm, a memory of another time.

When it's Alice with her on the bridge, she pulls the vodka bottle out of its hiding spot and she hands Claire a glass. "It wasn't your fault," she tells Claire. "I sent you there."

Claire nods and says, "But I went."

After that, the bridge feels smaller and Claire thinks of flying, thinks of the ground giving away for a little while before it rushes up to meet her, a fall broken by a shattering sound.

~*~

K-Mart is running in circles on the deck with other survivors, the tap tap tap of their feet insistent, a familiar rhythm.

Another group is doing push-ups.

Another is watching a young woman bending her body in strange shapes, attempting to follow her lead.

Somewhere beneath them, the kitchen is busy with the morning crew, six people already filling the room, trying to come up with something different for once.

The clanging sounds of repairs fill another hallway, a muffled curse, a joke shouted over a shoulder.

Claire is trading punches with her brother, well-practised moves made familiar again.

She trains with Alice, too, ducking away under sharp jabs and fast kicks, laughing when she manages to get a hit in, stumbling when Alice returns the favor. Feels free for a fleeting second before she walks up the stairs and opens the door to the sky and the waves and the tap tap tap of people running in circles.

~*~

She wakes up and the bridge is quiet.

Calm.

Alice is sitting in a chair, face lit up in lilacs and pinks, the morning light filtering through the windows.

Claire stays silent and watches her.

Outside, the colors change and the sky shows the world so many different hues. Inside, Alice is the sky's mirror, skin painted with the shifting spectrum.

And Claire can't look away from her.

~*~

"We need to leave the ship," Alice says. "For supply runs."

It's evening, the quick moment before one of them goes to sleep, one goes on their patrol and one turns to the tech, silently watching over their world. Chris is already sitting on the mattress, his face in the shadows, his body still taut with the tension of the day.

Claire is at the door, ready to leave. But she turns around when Alice speaks, leans back against the wall. "We're in fucking nowhere right now," she says.

They had pushed away from L.A after they freed the Arcadia, trying to get out of the target zone. It wasn't much use, they all knew that; Umbrella's reach still too wide to escape it so very easily, but it felt better. Safer.

"So we have to move closer to the coast. Small towns. Not big cities."

For a moment, Claire thinks of Las Vegas, of so many of her people dying, blood and bodies scattered all over the desert sand. She swallows. "You think we'll find something there?" she asks, pushing the past away and forcing herself into the present.

Alice shrugs. "Best place to start, I think."

Claire breathes in, thinks of the ship and the people on it, thinks of all the dead out there. "Okay," she finally says.

For a moment, she just looks at Alice.

And Alice looks at her.

A snort brings her back onto the bridge, her brother raising an eyebrow at them. "Now that you two cleared that up, can I go to sleep?"

Alice smirks, and Claire shakes her head, and the moment turns into their routine, patrolling and keeping watch and falling asleep.

~*~

"You're the captain," Chris says in the morning after they plotted their new course. "You're needed here."

They started this fight in the middle of breakfast, Chris so damn sure of himself and Alice aghast, frustrated. They started it and it went on while they ate and it's still going on now, with the three of them together on the bridge, cut off from the rest of the ship.

And now, her brother has ended it.

Alice still wants to argue, wants to fight this. Claire can see this so easily on her face, in the familiar scowl, in the bend of her middle and ring finger.

"If we lose you, we're fucked," Chris goes on, calm and distant.

It's not quite true, Claire thinks, but it's true enough.

Alice looks at Claire.

"Your decision," Claire tells her. And she tries not to think of leading the convoy alone, leading them all to their death; she tries not to think of Alice feeling the same.

Alice closes her eyes.

Claire looks at her. Chris doesn't.

Seconds tick by, Alice in this room with them, Alice somewhere else, months and years ago, underground with the undead rising all around her. The virus breaking through and breaking out, the world ending somewhere beneath Racoon City.

"Okay," she finally says. "Okay."

Chris breathes out.

Something inside of Claire comes loose and light. She won't lose Alice. Not yet, at least.

Days later, Chris smiles at her before he climbs into the lifeboat, a group of armed men and women waiting for him. The waves are calm, the sky clear, different blues stretched out above them.

For a quick moment, Claire thinks of Carlos.

~*~

The group is gone for three days.

It feels longer.

Claire looks for them whenever she is on the bridge, her eyes focused on the instruments; she looks for them when she is on the deck, her eyes on the ocean.

Sometimes, Alice is with her, a steady presence at her side, not quite a promise but something else, something like hope.

They made it this far.

This is not the end.

Chris will return.

They will find food and gasoline and clothes and everything they need.

Life will go on.

And fuck Umbrella.

~*~

“Do you remember,” Claire starts, stops. Thinks, for a moment. “The first time you saw a zombie?”

Alice snorts. “Who doesn't?”

Claire shrugs. Doesn't remind her that there are not all that many questions Alice could answer, doesn't remind her that Claire got to remember her life and Alice hasn't. Alice knows anyway.

“Do you remember,” Alice asks after a moment, and there is laughter in her voice, “the last time you drank whiskey?”

And Claire laughs, and she tells her about Chase handing her a bottle, the last dregs of liquid glinting like diamonds, tells her about them leaning against Claire's car, its tire stuck in the sand, the sun beating down at them. K-Mart ordering some of the other men around, making plans to push the car out of the small dune it was caught in. Some of the kids playing hopscotch on the highway, close enough to the bus that Claire didn't worry about them, far enough that their shrieks and giggles didn't grate.

Alice is smiling at her while Claire tells her everything she can remember about this moment, an easy smile that lights up her face, and it's so very beautiful.

She is beautiful.

And Claire is surprised, much later, with sleep stretching its hands out for her, that that moment, that story, didn't hurt.

~*~

Chris comes home with a cut on his hand, two guns they took off some corpses, a package of coffee and a bunch of tin cans filled with food. It's not much. But it's something.

~*~

"I don't remember ever drinking coffee," Alice says, and her voice is quiet and distant.

Claire looks at the coffee cups on the table between them, dark liquid and steam. "I can't remember what it tastes like."

Alice takes a cup, drinks and grimaces. "Like shit."

And Claire laughs and Alice smiles, and they drink the coffee anyway.

~*~

Chris is training with Alice, trading hits and kicks, and the dull sounds ring through the smaller room they use for this. Claire watches them. Sees her brother tumbling and wants to back him up, sees Alice jerking away after a hit landed and wants to reach for her.

Knows that the apocalypse isn't over yet, that the Arcadia is a reprieve, the slightest of chances.

She could still lose this.

She could lose them.

Thinks that she would be better off if she didn't care, not about Chris and not about Alice and not about K-Mart and the children and everybody else on the ship.

But she does.

~*~

They start to leave the ship more and more, small groups carrying as many weapons as they can, spending days on the shore, sometimes weeks. They need more food, more blankets, more clothes, more medicine. Because the ship has a lot, but it won't be enough for long. So they hunt and they gather and they fight the infected whenever they have to, run from them when they can.

Running means saving bullets. Running is smart.

Chris always goes with them, Alice always stays. A soldier's task, a captain's duty, and Claire worries about both of them. She knows that something's gotta break at some point, knows that Alice can't remain like this, not forever. It's Alice, after all, and she never gave in before.

Sometimes, Claire goes with Chris, her feet hitting solid ground again, her hand on her gun at every moment, with every step. She falls back into rhythm with her brother, and it's not as easy as it has been before, it takes them a while.

But most days, she looks at Alice alone at the helm of the ship, sees her on the bridge, watching the world outside or focused on reports about repairs and resources. And Claire waves her brother good-bye.

And she stays.

~*~

The morning is bright with sunshine, the waves throwing the light back up, the world clean and glittering. Alice is with her, and they are sitting on the ground, the deck warm underneath them, an animal stretched out in the sun. It feels like the moment after they killed Wesker, back when Alice sent out a new promise into the world.

It feels like hope once more.

For a moment, Claire imagines staying like this forever, the sun warming them, the waves singing.

Alice at peace.

But Alice gets up, always on the move, a caged animal on this ship, and she walks to the railing, leans against it. "Do you remember," Alice begins, pauses. Looks at the waves, her hands tight around the metal. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

Claire thinks of the desert, thinks of fire, and she remembers Alice standing tall and proud and so very strong. Smiles. "You were way cooler back then."

Alice turns around and smiles, walks back to Claire and hits her shoulder. Says, "Bitch," and sounds happy.

Claire grins.

Thinks, just like that, that she'd like to kiss her.

~*~

Chris comes back from another run, handing her a can with peaches, a small smile on his face.

"So a good run?" Claire asks, looking at the bulging bag he pulls onto the deck.

Chris shrugs. "Kinda. We found something else, though."

And he steps aside and he points down to the lifeboat, and Claire leans in, she looks down, and she sees the man dressed in an Umbrella uniform sitting among Chris' team.

And she knows with utter certainty that everything is going to change.

~*~

The man has cuts on his face, bruises, too, and he's wild-eyed. "We're killing people," he says, his voice shaking, and Claire wants to laugh at him.

Umbrella has been killing people for a long time.

But she keeps silent.

She watches him, watches Alice, sees the familiar tension in her body again, the determination. The need to move, to fight. To change things.

"They want them all dead," the man goes on. "The survivors. And I thought... I thought we were still trying to end it. The infection, I mean. Because there is a cure, I heard them talk about it. But we're still killing people." He swallows, looks at Alice. "Why are we still killing people? If there is a cure..."

"Where is it?" Alice asks, and the man recoils. He probably hoped for sympathy, for pity, and Claire doubts that Alice has any to spare. Not for Umbrella, anyway.

The man shrugs, looks away from Alice, looks at Claire. She raises her eyebrows at him.

"I'm not sure. We keep losing facilities. They don't really tell us about that, but, well... people talk."

"And if you had to guess?" Claire asks.

A sigh, the man looking away, looking at the wall. "Maybe Racoon City. We're still getting orders from there."

Alice nods, a sharp smile on her face, unsurprised. "Racoon City it is." And she looks over at Chris, says, "Don't even think about it."

Chris puts up his hands, says, "Didn't plan to," and Claire thinks that maybe the story was always supposed to happen this way. Alice held back on this ship until Umbrella raised its head again, the monster and its daughter.

~*~

They don't talk about Umbrella during dinner.

Chris is sitting with his crew, a tight group that has its own rhythm and its own language, and it's just Claire and Alice, silent and calm among the chatter of the different groups.

Claire sees K-Mart grinning at some boy, easy and free, and she sees the kids trading food with each other, canned beef paid with dried tomatoes, and for a moment she thinks of the convoy. She pushes the thought away.

She thinks of the world outside, of that place underneath Racoon City Alice hardly ever talks about. Presses her knee against Alice's leg and smiles when Alice presses back.

"Do you remember..." Alice begins, but doesn't go on.

And Claire thinks of Alice's face careful with hope when she first told them about the Arcadia, thinks of her fighting in Las Vegas, thinks of letting Carlos go. Thinks of Alice looking up at the helicopter and Claire flying away.

"Yeah," she says. "I do."

~*~

It's dark on the bridge, Claire sitting in one of the chairs, watching nothing and everything. Alice is curled up on the mattress, her breath a soft sound in the night.

Claire knows she is only pretending to sleep. Gives her time, gives her space. She lets her mind drift, thinks of K-Mart's idea to build up a library, thinks of the teenagers who asked her for fight lessons, thinks of the repairs needed at the rudder that the repair crew hasn't figured out how to do yet. Wonders about tomorrow's breakfast and weather.

"This," Alice says, finally breaking the silence, "this could change everything."

"Yeah," Claire agrees. "If it's true."

Alice moves, a rustling noise, and maybe Claire could walk over to her, could sit down next to her. But she doesn't, she keeps still, and she waits.

"I can't ignore this one," Alice says, her voice tense with hope and fury, and Claire doesn't even think of arguing.

"Of course," she says, and she leans over to the table and turns on the lamp. Blinks against the sudden light. Looks at Alice and waits her out.

"It's my turn to go out there," Alice goes on.

And maybe Claire should argue, maybe she should tell Alice that she is still needed on the Arcadia, that Chris and his crew could go instead. But she doesn't, she swallows the arguments and her worries, and she says, "So we go together. Chris stays with the Arcadia and you and me, we go and kick Umbrella's ass."

Alice smiles, and it's the same smile Claire had seen months ago, back when Alice sent out the first message into the world, calling humanity to the Arcadia. "Yes," she says, and she gets up, she walks over to Claire, and she reaches for Claire's hand. "Sounds good to me."

And Claire leans up, leans in, and kisses her.


End file.
